“I’m afraid you don’t have any choice in that, Lahn.”

“I know at this time this will upset you, kah Lahnahsahna, but I do. Did you not think when I crushed your spirit that, when I got you back, I would not know you would again try to leave? The spell cast to guide you to your true home also tethered you to this world, Circe, our world. You’re never going back.”

I stared at him.

He wasn’t serious.

Was he?

He kept talking. “It also anchors you to me so even if you were to try to escape me in this world, I would sense you and could seek you out. You couldn’t cloak yourself. You’d always somehow be visible to me.”

I kept staring at him.

Seriously, he could not freaking be serious!

“You didn’t,” I breathed.

“I did,” he returned.

“You didn’t,” I repeated on a breath and his face got closer.

“I… fucking… did,” he growled. “You promised never to leave me and you left me. I’ve seen to it that will not fucking happen again.”

I knew my lips had parted and I felt the sting of tears in my nose.

Then I whispered, “I can’t believe you did that.”

“You gave me you of your free will, you are mine. And I gave you me, I am yours. I will do anything to keep you, my queen, believe that. ”

“That’s like… stalker psycho.” I was still whispering.

“I have no idea what that means and I do not care. It is the way it is. And Circe,” his face got closer, his hand sliding up my side, over my chest, up my neck to cup my jaw where his thumb swept my cheekbone as he finished softly, “I will resurrect your spirit inside you. I will stop at nothing to do it. It will shine for me again. You can believe that too.”

Before I could stop him, his thumb swept over my lips, locked around my jaw and he held my head steady as his dipped down and his lips touched mine.

My belly clenched.

Then he lifted his head and looked deep in my eyes before his thumb swept back over my lips, he lifted up and kissed my forehead then he rolled off the bed and stalked across the room.

I got up on my elbows to watch him open the door and saw Twinka was there holding some bath cloths.

“Her warrior wives visit, you do not send them away. You let them in. If they do not, you send one of her girls to go get them.

This is a command from their king and if one of them disobeys, any of them, wife or slave, they answer to me. Am I understood?” Lahn asked firmly.

Twinka looked at me and smiled huge.

“Meena, kah Dax,” she muttered, as she would because she knew this would piss me off and/or upset me and she was all for anything that did that.

“Dohno,” Lahn muttered and then he was gone.

I collapsed back on the bed and stared at the ceiling.

Twinka hummed happily as she took the cloths to the bathroom-type room.

* * * * *

I sat on a lounge chair on the roof, stared into the distance at the sun sparking off the gold on the Avenue of the Gods and I pulled the intricately knit, loose-woven shawl closer around me while wondering if there was some troop of slaves who went out every day and polished that gold. It always sparkled even mostly surrounded by sand and dust.

So I figured there was.

Ghost, as always since I got home, was at my side, now lying on her front, jaws to paws.

I stroked her absently and unfortunately my thoughts drifted from statue slaves to other matters that I didn’t want to think about but couldn’t stop myself.

When I’d been gone, Lahn had had a busy five months. Although I hadn’t seen my posse, I could not avoid my girls and they had told me all they knew.

Firstly, Lahn, Suh Tunak and the Keenhak warriors had ridden on Maroo as planned. Maroo had had their grisly message that

vengeance would be sought by the Dax so they had planned for the invasion but they had no clue they’d also be facing the additional challenge by neighboring Keenhak.

Gaal, with bright eyes and scary excitement at telling her macabre tales, informed me that Suh Tunak and Keenhak had trounced Maroo and, in telling me this, she unfortunately went into some detail. Vengeance was sought and found and Maroo would not soon forget the lesson they learned.

“Not,” Gaal leaned forward, eyes wide and joyous, “for generations. ”

If her stories were anything to go by, I believed this to be true. In a serious way.

Apparently, Lahn and his boys didn’t fuck around exacting vengeance.

Yikes.

This took all of about three months and Suh Tunak rode back into Korwahn bearing a shitload of Maroo slaves and booty.

The people of Korwahn rejoiced. As these riches rained down on them they felt it was irrefutable proof The Golden Dynasty had begun.

Lahn and Suh Tunak had shared in a week’s worth of celebrations for their victory and then they road off in their parties to wreak havoc or patrol, this including the Daxshee packing up and going on their way.

My disappearance and my not travelling with the Daxshee had been explained by the fierce storm that had struck the city prior to me going back home. Jacanda told me that word was spread that the storm was a result of me having a very bad turn and developments in my pregnancy that night meant I had to keep to my bed throughout it.

This was accepted readily.

But my girls and my girl posse knew I had disappeared because my girls had been ordered to search for me in the house the day I

disappeared and my posse had been told by their husbands. They had been sworn to silence about this information (with threats of their tongues being cut out which would do the trick for anyone).

But Beetus explained that singly, in pairs, in trios or sometimes all of my girl posse visited every day prior to the Daxshee leaving and them going with it and they did this in order to ascertain if there was news.

This was nice.